


What's Left

by paragonparadigm



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paragonparadigm/pseuds/paragonparadigm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much time has passed, sometimes you just can't say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Left

_I’ve always wanted to see the sea. When this is all over, we should go. Just the two of us, it’s supposed to be peaceful. Someone once told me it was a good place to start over, and that’s just what I want to do. I want to start my life all over with you.  
_

He could just barely make out the single grey stone standing vigilant over the hill and already his palms were clammy and his throat tight. The smell of violets was strong, wafting up at him from the breeze coming off the ocean. They were the only flower he could ever recall her speaking of with any sort of fondness.

It felt like forever ago.

_Walking around the streets of Vancouver, her first taste of freedom since they’d arrived on Earth. The home planet she only got to visit as a punishment. A street vendor, an older woman with a bright smile had been selling them. Shepard had doled the credits out without thinking, the flowers brought almost reverently up to her nose as they walked away._

_“You can’t exactly buy a bouquet when you’re stuck on a ship every day of your life. My mom used to tell me that they were one of the few things she missed once she joined the Alliance.” She’d smiled softly at the time, more at the memory than the small trinket clasped between her hands. “Of all the silly things.”_

He clasped the bouquet tightly in his hand as he limped up the hill. It had suffered a nearly clean break from their emergency crash landing after the Crucible beam had chased them through the relay and had never managed to heal correctly. A small inconvenience, all things considered. It had taken long enough to get here, the small grave overlooking the sea had been the one request she’d left for whoever remained once the war was done. That task had fallen to her mother, reports where that Hannah Shepard never visited once it was completed. Just didn’t have the heart.

Nearly ten years ago.

A full decade and he was just now able to visit the remains of the woman who had meant the world to him. They’d made good time in the Normandy once it was up and running again, or what could be considered good time with the Relays destroyed. The rest of the crew had already said their goodbyes, made their piece once the plaque was up. Once the reports came in that they’d discovered Shepard’s body buried with the remnants of the Citadel. Mostly just charred bits of armor and her lucky pistol, but it was enough.

She wasn’t coming back this time.

The final few steps were passed before he even realized it. Now it was just him and that daunting stone, the wind, and the smell of violets. What do you say to a memory?

“I uh brought you flowers.” They fell numbly from his fingers, a few stray petals scattered on the wind before falling with a dull thump in front of the stone. “Don’t know that you really need them anymore, or if you’d even have wanted them in the first place…” A hand came up to fiddle nervously with the brim of his hat, green eyes reading and rereading the small inscription on the stone.

“I’d get onto you for not keeping your promise, but I didn’t make it back so quick as I might have hoped either.” There was a catch in his voice, a small break that reminisced of younger years. “Sorry about that. I just…Damn it Shepard, why’d you have to die on me? Maybe it would have been easier if Cerberus hadn’t…back then…”

The words were all wrong, just spilling out in an awkward succession. A collection of every passing thought once the initial news had arrived. That it would have been easier if Cerberus had never brought her back, if she, if they. Granted, they’d all be dead now if that weren’t the case.

Somebody had to do it.

_“You don’t understand, I can’t just ignore when someone needs my help! I don’t care if you have to fly me to every last corner of this galaxy, if somebody reaches out and asks for my hand I’m not about to slap it away. Not everybody can save themselves, that’s why they have their heroes. It’s not what I asked to be, but it’s what they think I am. I’m not about to let them down.”_

It was one of the last things she’d said to him. Right near the end, before they took down Cerberus’s base. She’d had them jumping from system to system, tracking down seemingly useless things for their Allies or for the Crucible, occasionally stopping to bash some heads in so refugees would have a change to hightail it.

He’d opened his big mouth when he should have known better. It had been a proper reprimand, one that tore at him in a slow way, a nagging in the back of his mind every time they stopped off at another planet. That’s what she did, got inside his head, reminded him that there was something _good_ out there. It shouldn’t have bothered him so much that she seemed like the strongest source of it.

Never thought he’d end up with someone like that, or anyone for that matter. But maybe it was because the woman who fell into his arms every night wasn’t just that ideal. She cried and she fought and loved with such a fierce sort of desperation. Maybe it was part of the job, when your life was on the line every day.

“Guess I’m supposed to let you go now? That’s what I meant to do at least, that I’d just say goodbye and let your memory rest and all that. I mean, you deserve it. I just wish, I wish we could have had what you told me about. You remember that? That night before we took down Cerberus you told me that wanted to get married, maybe have a few of my clumsy ass kids, a whole new life. Do you remember that?” The words are garbled to his ears, tears that were generally held in check slipping out the corner of his eyes.

“Why couldn’t you come back this time, huh? Why couldn’t you keep one damn promise?” They were just words now, tossed out with an angry desperation at the empty air. He hated that stone. If a stone could have an attitude he would swear this one was berating him with a haughty derision. Judging his pain.Challenging it.

That small inscription telling him all he everything he should have already known. He was a selfish man, he could accept this, he just wish she had been selfish too. Just once.


End file.
